Mr. A’s truck has a 32 gallon tank so getting gas isn’t a twice weekly deal like it is in my vehicle, so well, I guess I just lost track. And besides, the gauge was barely starting toward the “E”. AJ and I were on our way down the freeway and the truck started chug-chug-chugging. I became alarmed, asking out loud why the truck was acting like that and he said, “Get off. Get off here. Mom, get off the freeway.” Luckily we were right near an exit and I don’t even know why I was in the farthest right lane. There are three lanes, and I typically travel in the far left lane as that is the one that continues on through without any merging. So I got off the freeway and the truck died at the nearest intersection. Of course people that had just come off the freeway, even though I had my hazard lights on, started honking impatiently. I got out of the vehicle, faced toward the cars behind me, threw up my arms and said, “I’m out of gas!” So then they drove around us. We decided to go down the road a ways and turn onto a street that was in a business section. AJ pushed - I helped at first, but we were on a bit of a downslope so it wasn’t difficult for him to push by himself. We stopped at the side of the road and I told him to start Googling on his phone and find the nearest gas station. After all that’s one of the reasons he wants Internet on his phone, for emergencies such as this.

I decided to walk over to the hotel we were right across the street from. It was a Marriott. I stepped in and there was a young man and a young woman at the front desk. The young woman was speaking to someone, so I walked over to the young man and asked him if he knew where the nearest gas station was located. He told me how far down the road, pointed in the direction I should head. I thanked him, and explained, “I’m out of gas.”

He immediately looked very concerned, and asked me if I needed a ride. I told him I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do, since I didn’t know if I had a gas can. He said, “Oh, the gas station will have one. I can take you there.” He grabbed the keys to the van they use to shuttle people to and from the airport and we headed out. We stopped by the truck to see if AJ wanted to come along, but he declined. So the nice young man took me first to a Quik Trip, but they didn’t have any gas cans. He was completely fine with that, and said “There’s more stations just down the road. We’ll find one.”

He couldn’t have been over 22 or 23 years old. I thanked him again and again, and he said his mother taught him to help people whenever you can. We talked about how it’s scary in this world, because you have to be careful about who you help (by the way - I saw the pregnant young homeless woman yesterday - she was walking down the street in the same general area, looking much more pregnant, and still looked to be homeless). I told him Mr. A freaks out a little when I help people in need on the freeway, and I told him he’d probably freak when he knew I just went off with a complete stranger (hotel employee or not!). But Mr. A wasn’t too upset, especially when he heard the young man has the same name as he does. 

I know we have gas cans at home, so unfortunately having to buy one from a gas station set us back by $13 plus tax, for a two gallon can.

It’s embarrassing to run out of gas. I think this is only the third time in my adult life. Before my mom married my stepfather we were without a car for most of the four years she was single. When we did have a car, she could never afford to fill the tank all the way up, so it seemed like we were always running out of gas.

I’m thankful this time was because I made a mistake, not because of financial woes.

I am going to send a thank you card to the young man (that was the main reason I took note of his name), and I am also going to find the name of his supervisor, or the hotel manager, someone important, and send them a little note and let them know how very much I appreciate the young man helping me out, and what a great thing it is that he had the option to do that for me. I know a lot of places are very strict, and they must have a nice degree of autonomy at the hotel there to be able to make a decision like that without having to ask permission first.

Have you had any pleasant encounters with strangers recently?

Yours Truly,

This is my sister with the bad credit problem.  She says the lending company told her her credit rating is 765, and has nothing to worry about. Okay, that’s great. That’s pretty much fantastic.

Initially she asked me if I could help her out with any money at all, as she needs to come up with $2900 cash for the closing costs. Later in the day she called to let me know she’s applied for a $5000 loan through the credit union.

She’s so excited, it’s a $100,000 home and she says her mortgage payment is estimated to be $750.   She says she’s paying almost that much now. I asked her if she knew what kind of a mortgage she was applying for, she didn’t.  I warned her to make sure it wasn’t an ARM.  I also explained that the rule of thumb is to assume you’ll be paying $100 for every $10,000 due to escrow fees of taxes and insurance.  Later in the day she called me and she was still glowy and happy about paying nearly the same amount for her own home as the rent she’s been paying!

My sister has been living in HUD housing, which tends to keep you down.  My sister owns her own business, cleaning houses, and makes a fair wage, but she is required to pay 30% of her income toward the rent payment. The Internal Revenue Service is already taking nearly 30% of her income in taxes (since she’s self-employed), and she has to pay HUD 30%. This has kept her restricted to a point - the more she makes, the more on both she’s had to pay!

I told her a couple of weeks ago she needs to sit down and figure out just how much money she needs to make to afford to get out of HUD housing. I told her she has the potential to make a lot of money in her business, and she could even get to the point where she could hire others to work for her. Hey, it can happen!

But the picture isn’t so rosy right now. I hope she’s on her way to digging out of the hole she’s gotten into - thankfully she doesn’t have too much debt - I know she has one credit card that’s around $2000. Unfortunately, her boyfriend has had a very hard time finding work, I’m afraid due to his alcoholism.  My sister is also looking forward to becoming a grandmother… but her son who is just 16 (he’ll turn 17 next month!!) is unemployed, and having a dickens of a time finding a job.  The girlfriend… who is 21 (girl, what were you thinking!) is also unemployed (UPDATE: the girlfriend apparently works and brings home $2000 a month and the son says if my sister expects them to pay more than $100 a month to live there, then they’ll just go someplace else to live where they can live for free!  Oh boy, I’d like to pop that kid one!  I guess the girlfriend’s mother has been letting them live with her for nothing at all).

The house is 2000 square feet and a two story. Her electricity bill is guaranteed to skyrocket. She might be better off to find a one story home, since two story homes require two air conditioners.  And with homeownership comes the responsibility of paying for the repairs yourself.  Anything that goes wrong, you have to be the one to fix it. Now I understand the boyfriend is a “handyman” type, so maybe he’ll find a way to “earn his keep”.

My sister is counting on the first time homeowners rebate to pay off the $5000 loan she’s counting on in order to make the closing costs, she says she’ll get $8000.  I really don’t know anything about it, haven’t paid much attention to it as I wouldn’t qualify.  Hopefully that is how much she’ll get.

I’m really thrilled for my sister, I hope she can make a new start. It is VERY exciting that she’ll be able to get out from under HUD housing and own her very own home. But I also hope for her sake that the boyfriend gets off his duff and starts bringing in some money, or takes a hike. And I hope her son and the girlfriend will contribute. She might be able to make it.

But I don’t know; I’m a little worried for her.

Yours Truly,

So my vehicle has been doing this really weird thing where it blows cold air, but only while the vehicle is moving, sometimes I can jump start the air conditioner by rolling the passenger window down, then up, then down. It’s like the air blowing through the system (the circulator button has to be disengaged) caused something to start (the fan?) and then it comes on and blows like it’s supposed to.

Last week my magic trick stopped working.  No matter how many times I rolled the window up and down, I couldn’t persuade the thing to start blowing. So I spend 60 to 90 minutes on the way home in the heat of the afternoon, each day, with the passenger window about halfway down, just so a little gust of cold air would pass through the vents. It was tolerable, but just barely. Hey, I didn’t pass out from heat exhaustion so that’s a good thing.

Mr. A’s truck’s air conditioning stopped working a few weeks back, too. Now that was one of the main reasons he wanted to upgrade from his older truck - air conditioning. It’s hard enough to be out there working in the heat, then have to get into an oven to drive home, while hot blasting air is pouring over your body all the way home.  Mr. A takes work up to 100 miles away, so that’s a long, hot drive when you’re already sunburnt from an entire day in it. And now his “new” truck’s air conditioning decides to stop working.

We’ve had enough expensive repairs in the last few months, we weren’t at all prepared for two vehicles to need their air conditioners worked on. Plus, it seemed to get real hot real fast.

Well, as it turns out, the problem could be resolved, in both vehicles, with a $4 switch.  Mr. A was able to wire the blower to a switch inside the vehicle and now both air conditioners work.  It’s a little annoying since full blast air is the only option. No low or medium, just high, full blast high. It actually gets a little chilly early in the morning, and it’s obnoxiously loud.  But I tell you what, driving home yesterday afternoon in 115°F weather I was very happy for the obnoxiously loud cold air coming through those vents.

Hopefully we’ll get them both fixed soon, but in the meantime, they’re working and I’m grateful that Mr. A is so resourceful.

In the hot desert,

She’s paying almost $50/month for the service. I’m trying to talk her into a pay as you go phone [Disclaimer: T-mobile has not paid me to make this post], as it can be a much more economical option.  AJ used a T-mobile pay as you go phone for about a year before upgrading to the plan he’s on now.  Basically we bought the phone for him, which cost nearly $100 and then we bought 1000 minutes on the “Gold Rewards” for $100.

The minutes are good for one year, and once we bought the “Gold Rewards” 1000 minutes, we could get less minutes at ten cents a minute.  So 500 minutes for $50.00, and 250 minutes for $25.00.

I actually suggested to my boss that she take over AJ’s pay as you go phone once her contract comes to an end.  The only problem we could foresee was she was hoping to stay with the phone number she’s had for the last three years. Here’s the funny thing about that concern: she rarely uses the phone, hardly anyone in her family calls her on it, she doesn’t even know her cell phone number, and furthermore, she turns it off the four days a week she’s at home. She figures why waste the battery power when her home phone will suffice.

But if she would be willing to go with pay as you go phone, she could save so much money!  She’s paying ~$50/month now, as opposed to possibly paying $25 or maybe $50 in a year!

Let’s see… change my phone number and pay $50/year or keep my phone number and pay… $600. Clearly, changing the number is the better option.

While we still have AJ’s phone, I realized another use for it. I had to place a classified ad for a week, and I put my phone number in the ad. Once I’d placed the ad, I realized I *should* have put his old phone number in the ad. That way, when it rings, surely it will be someone from the classified ad calling.  As long as my phone number is in the ad, my privacy is compromised to quite an extent.  What I mean by that is that I don’t get many calls at all on my phone, and my family (mom, siblings, in-laws) knows that I go to sleep very early at night. Rarely would I get a phone call after 7pm, unless it were an emergency.  I do have AJ call me when he’s on his way home when he’s out late at night, it just helps a mother to sleep better, especially when the route home is on a deserted highway in the middle of the desert. But while my phone number is out there, I could get calls day or night without knowing who is calling.  Which I really dislike.  I guess you could say I’ve become a bit phone-phobic.

Anyway, another good use for a pay as you go phone would be for an elderly person who you want to have a cell phone, but they won’t be using it much. One of my coworkers has had her mother-in-law on their plan for the past year and she says the MIL has used exactly 12 minutes in the last year on the phone.  And they’ve been paying a monthly fee! The MIL is faithful to charge the phone and take it wherever she goes, so the worry factor for the family is lessened, but think of the savings if they invested in a pay as you go phone, instead of a monthly plan fee.

Last year, when my cell phone had long distance and roaming charges, AJ’s phone came in real handy when we were out of state together.  His pay as you go phone had no roaming charges, so that was another good use for that type of phone.

I’ve been buried at work, we are still working to get the fiscal year closed. I put in 19 hours overtime this weekend alone, and am really feeling the strain… I thought I was busy before, I have just been totally swamped.

So what say you? Have you used pay as you go phones? Hated them, loved them?

Yours Truly,

I think this is a fantastic idea and will also help folks in need to locate food pantries in their area more easily. Pass on the word!

Yours Truly,

Land of the free, home of the brave. God bless our troops for the job they are doing to protect our country.  Our country and the state in which I live are in pretty bad spots financially, I hope we can pull through without having to go into a depression like some are anticipating.

But on a lighter topic, I love fireworks. 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays.  I love taking photos of fireworks.  AJ and I went to a 4th of July get together last night and we both took our cameras.  We have two tripods, but could only locate one. AJ wanted to take some video as well so he let me have full use of the tripod.

My camera is just a little ol’ point and shoot, but I am always very pleased with the photos that come out.

Here are a few tips for getting fireworks shots.

TIP ONE:

Figure out if you can set your camera to have a slower shutter speed, or perhaps yours will have a setting specifically designed for taking fireworks, like my Nikon Coolpix S220 does. Since it’s a point and shoot, it doesn’t like me set the shutter speed or anything fancy, but it does have a lot of “scene” settings from which I can choose. Like sunset, fireworks, beach/snow, etc. You can imagine the different lighting you would get at sunset, during fireworks, or at the beach or if snow was all over.

TIP TWO:

Always bring a tripod. I have tried taking photos without the tripod but it didn’t work out, I can’t stand anywhere near as still as a tripod can.

TIP THREE:

Make sure your battery is charged. I always make sure my battery is fully charged prior to leaving for the fireworks show.  I actually own a second battery so I make sure both are fully charged.

TIP FOUR:

Clear your camera’s memory card. I always make sure I have an empty card so I can take plenty of pictures.

TIP FIVE:

Set your photo resolution at the highest setting, just in case you want to get photo prints made up of your fantastic firework photos!

TIP SIX:

Last but not least: This tip is something with which you must experiment.  You have to get your timing right. I listen for the “boom” sound when the firework has been set off, you can hear it whizzing up into the sky but you can’t see it yet.  Right at that moment I snap the photo. The shutter stays open for several seconds and hopefully it will gather the photo while the firework is up in the sky. Otherwise, if you wait too long or if you take the photo while the firework is in the sky, you may end up with black sky, or maybe a few little flicks of light.

Of the 150 photos I took, I had about 3 dozen black photos, some with tiny points of light.  It is a bit of a distraction (to your enjoyment of watching fireworks) to be messing with the camera but after a while you’ll get the hang of when to snap the photo to get the firework. The thing is your shutter will be open 10-30 seconds, taking light in all those seconds. That’s why you see long streaks of light in my photo above.

Of the 150 photos I took, I ended up liking 60 of them. That’s pretty good, I think. And also why it’s so important to take LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of photos!! It’s so easy to do with a digital camera!

Good luck with your photo shots!  These tips are also great for taking photos of campfires, christmas lights and anything else with lights in the dark!

I hope you have a wonderfully relaxing day today, with good food, friends and family!

Mrs. Accountability

Of course, that is brilliant! I love doing creative type things, and even though I don’t have lots of time to spend on artsy-craftsy stuff, I could put together fifty or so at one time and not have to worry about making more for a while.

I just happened a couple of weeks ago to find Rubber Stamp Champ, an online site that makes custom stamps and right now they are having a “Knockout Price” on their Ideal 50 Self-Inking stamp.  The cost is $6.25 per stamp, and free shipping for orders over $10.

I ordered a stamp with the company name and address for envelopes, and a stamp with the company name, Mr. A’s name and phone number, for Mr. A’s receipt book.  They arrived within a week of ordering. I am very pleased with their product. These stamps would also be great to use as endorsement/deposit stamps.

They make a lot of other kinds of stamps, and maybe I’ll have one customized with the company logo for the thank you cards.

Thanks for the inspiration, Cathy!

Mrs. Accountability

Back in 1999 I was having a lot of trouble keeping a garlic press around. They kept breaking. The plastic parts would break or even the metal parts would break. I was buying a new garlic press every 6 months or so. Then I asked some friends on an online list.  A couple of them raved about their Zyliss Susi Garlic Press. It was pretty expensive for me back then, but I took their advice and bought one. I didn’t know at the time I was actually making an investment in a great product that would end up lasting over a decade! Amazingly, the price has stayed the same, it still costs $14.99 - so my cost each year has been $1.50!

And happily, I’m still using my garlic press, it still works perfectly. You can even toss the whole unpeeled clove into this baby and it works great.  Actually that’s the easiest way to use it, because when you pull the skin out of the press it removes nearly all the garlic fibers that are left behind and you just have to rinse and it’s clean.

Last night we had chicken taco salad for dinner. I used my trusty garlic press to make the salsa, and the ranch dressing. Have I ever shared my homemade ranch dressing with you? I don’t think I have.  Well, it’s about high time I did. It’s much more economical than buying the package mix, it doesn’t contain any unpronounceable ingredients, and best of all, no MSG.

Homemade Ranch Dressing

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 cup plain yogurt
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon granulated onion powder
1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
pinch of paprika
salt and pepper to taste

For best results, mix the ingredients together about an hour before using so the parsley flakes have time to soften.

You can also use buttermilk or sour cream instead of yogurt. It’s so easy to have all these ingredients on hand that I can make ranch dressing any time I want.

I’m still on the hunt for a can opener that will last for a decade or longer. I used to buy the Swing-a-Way brand, but even those are now poor quality. We bought a Kitchen-Aid can opener, but it lasted less than six months. I thought Kitchen-Aid was supposed to be high quality, but unfortunately that wasn’t our experience.

Well, now you know what garlic press to invest in.

Have a lovely day!

Mrs. Accountability

On the home front, as usual I’ve been busy with Mr. A’s business, and other things. We completed our last pickup for the side job we quit last month, on Friday. Over the weekend I designed a new logo for Mr. A’s business and we’re ordering more shirts, and this time baseball hats.  We’re also looking into whether we should combine his businesses, or keep them separate as they are now. It would be a lot simpler bookkeeping-wise right now, but we are looking to the future when if things work out as we hope we will be able to sell his one business.  He’s building a very nice client base, and we are starting to advertise more heavily in the cities nearest to where we live.  He’s still not making a ton of money, but things are looking good.  We’re also looking into making his business into an LLC.   I’ve contacted the local SCORE for advice and am still looking for an accountant that can give me financial advice for Quicken.

Financially on the home front we’re getting by - we’ve made a little dent in the debt and my 0% interest cards are nearing the end and will soon have interest rates so I need to start finding cards to transfer the amounts onto.

Our mortgage went up by a couple of dollars, we had an escrow shortage of $142, which we paid, but the amount still increased.  That’s okay, it’s only gone up to $514.

No car repairs in June, whew.  After the whoppers in April and May, we deserve a break. Thank you old vehicles for staying in shape.

We’ve been invited to a July 3rd party and are planning to attend. I’m planning to bring a bunch of eggplant that we can grill and the hosts have a swimming pool and then we’ll all go to see fireworks in their community park. Should be fun.

What are your plans for the 4th?

Mrs. Accountability

I recently signed her up at Amazon - and they offered her a $30 discount if she signed up for a card. She agreed to sign up for the card. About a week ago she came to me and asked if I could check somehow and see why she hadn’t gotten a bill for the Amazon credit card. I went online and we discovered she had incurred a $15 late fee.

She had me make a payment online and said she’d worry about the $15 late fee later.

Then a few days later she told me that a bundle of mail had showed up in her box after the mailman had already delivered mail earlier in the morning. In the bundle of mail, along with the Amazon bill, she found several more credit card bills that had not been paid, so she had late fees on all of them! What a bummer!

She believes what happened is one of the neighbor children likes to check the mail and she thinks he might have come over to her house and checked her mail and then the parents never found her mail until a couple weeks later. They didn’t even have the decency to bring it to her in person, they just slipped it into the mailbox.

So now she has a bunch of late fees on several credit cards.

Again I was astonished because while I am not perfect, I keep a list of what bills are due when and I go through that list every payday and check off what has been paid, and how much was paid.   I am now even more convinced that it is important and necessary to keep a list of bills and to not depend on the postal delivery service to alert me to what bill is now due.

She is extremely organized, and would never lose a bill, but it seems foolhardy to not have a list of bills and when they are due, especially since this has now happened to her twice!

I use Excel to keep track of my bills. I am paid twice a month. I have my bills set up to pay most of them on the first paycheck, then the rest on the second paycheck. I pay most of them online, and many are automatic payments.

Every payday I copy the previous time period to the bottom of the workbook and repopulate the cells with the correct information. For example, I enter the amount in the bank accounts and make sure all the amounts due are filled in. Here is a screenshot:

I know by looking at my spreadsheet that all the credit cards are due, Mr. A’s medical insurance is due, etc.  At a glance I can see everything that needs to be paid this payday.

As I go down the list, I bold the item amounts that have been paid, delete the amount due from the right column, and enter the new checking account balance. In the example below, I’ve paid all the credit cards which amounts to $865.00. This reduces the checking account by $865, so I enter the new amount there.

Then I make a payment directly to the Amazon Personal card for the amounts we have budgeted for gasoline and food and Mr. A’s allowance, $770.00.

Then I go through and list all the auto payments into Quicken, and write checks for the remaining items. Now as you can see the checking accounts are way down to almost nothing, and the right hand column shows no amounts owed. All amounts are bold, indicating they are all paid.

Two weeks from now I’ll start all over again. Copy and paste these rows at the bottom of the spreadsheet, fill the right column by dragging the top formula, and enter the amounts in the checking accounts.

I’ve been using this spreadsheet since 2002 in combination with Quicken.  As long as I sit down every two weeks and work out what is due and pay bills, I can rest easy that everything has been paid.

Do you use Excel to help track your bills?  What method do you find to work the best?

Mrs. Accountability